HAUNTED
HOLLYWOOD: PART 2The Haunted History of Hollywood and the Great Scandals of
Yesterday

The Haunted History of Hollywood & the City of
Angels

Almost from the founding of the city, Los Angeles had a
bad reputation. The once sleepy Spanish mission had been stolen from the
rightful Mexican owners during the American quest for Manifest Destiny and
soon, immigrants from the east were pouring out to the west coast. The Eastern
newspapers promised sunshine, warm weather, easy living and, of course, an
elusive fortune which could be obtained in the California gold fields.

What many of the immigrants found instead was poverty and
death. The majority of them returned home with nothing to show for their
travels and hard work... and many of them never returned home at all.

By the middle part of the 1800’s, Los Angeles (dubbed the
City of Angels by the original founders) was literally filled with murderers,
thieves and prostitutes. The streets were nothing more than rutted dirt paths
where animals roamed and where garbage was dumped. The city gained its first
notoriety in 1871 when a massacre of Chinese immigrants was reported in
newspapers all over the country. The massacre took place near the old city
plaza on the Calle de los Negros, which was commonly mistranslated in those
days and called “Nigger Alley”. The narrow street was a block of saloons,
gambling parlors and dance halls. It was said that three or four men were
murdered in the alley every weekend... in other words, not a good place to be
if you wanted to live a long and happy life!

It was in 1871 that a huge crowd of white men went on a
killing spree in the alley after a drunken Chinese immigrant began firing off
his gun and accidentally hit a “white man”. Within minutes, an inebriated
and enraged mob swarmed through along the street, lynching, burning, stabbing
and beating any Chinese man they could get their hands on. Eventually, 19 of
them were killed. The Grand Jury indicted 156 men in the affair, with only six
of them actually going to jail. Several days later, those six were released on
lack of evidence. This would be the first time that charges of corruption
would be leveled at local government, but it would not be the last.

Shortly after the turn of the century, a new flock of
immigrants arrived, to be welcomed by what would only be rivaled in Chicago as
the most corrupt city government and police force in America. Fortunes began
to be made in oil and land and graft and petty crime became commonplace. The
population explosion brought not only the upright citizens but the scam
artists, con men and nut cases who tried to take advantage of the rapid
growth.

Like most other cities in the country, corruption and vice
came with the territory but Los Angeles was different. It was new and fresh
and geography of the area, the automobile and Hollywood all combined to create
a unique combination. Other cities had grown up around horse-drawn carriages,
railroad and trolley cars, but Los Angeles was born at the beginning of the
automobile age and with over 450 square miles of roads, the city had plenty of
room to grow. The car was the principal form of transportation and this
created “boom-town” mentality for new arrivals.

Of all of the reasons for the rapid growth, Hollywood was
undoubtedly the biggest one. The mere mention of the name guaranteed readers
for any newspaper story in the nation. In just a few short years, thanks to
huge stars like Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and many others, Hollywood
had managed to set itself apart from the rest of the world and everything here
seemed larger than life.

The rapid growth of Los Angeles was already causing enough
problems when Prohibition came about in 1920 and created all new ones. As with
just about everywhere else in the country, the demand for illegal liquor was
high in Los Angeles and there were dozens of hoods who were happy to bribe the
cops to get the kegs and bottles in the right hands. Perhaps the most famous
L.A. hotspot for booze was Culver City, known as the “Heart of Screenland”.
This famous town played host to M.G.M, Hal Roach and a number of other studios
and its main street, Washington Boulevard, played host to dozens of
speakeasies, gambling parlors and gin joints. The town’s “open”
reputation insured gambling and prostitution as well and soon it had added a
race track, a boxing arena and a dog racing track to its list of
accomplishments. All of them served as a magnet for local gangsters. In
addition, the Culver City police department was well-known for looking the
other way, losing evidence and bungling their investigations (as long as cash
landed in the right pockets). Thanks to this, the life of crime here operated
undisturbed.

Of course, Culver City was not the only place to find
booze, gambling and “broads”... the rest of southern California had a
thirst for illegal liquor and vice as well. And Hollywood could always be
counted on for corruption and scandal too. The film industry, which was the
largest business in the area by the 1920’s, provided more than enough money
for both excess and debauchery. A series of scandals rocked the film colony in
the early 20’s including the alleged rape and murder of Virginia Rappe by
America’s beloved funny man, Fatty Arbuckle; the drug-related death of
Wallace Reid; the murder of director William Desmond Taylor; and others.

All of this gave America a ringside seat to the scandals of
the movie colony and its shining stars. There was no doubt about it... orgies,
drugs, illegal hooch, scandals and sex.... Hollywood had it all!

Bathtub gin and prostitutes were not the only forms of vice
to hit southern California and by the late 1920’s, several sensational
crimes had been committed here as well. These would be the first of many to
come.

In 1927, the case of Edward Hickman and the kidnapping and
dismemberment of twelve-year-old Marion Parker would make big headlines as
would the 1929 gun battle between Jack Hawkins and Zeke Hayes and the L.A.
police within the courthouse elevator. The two men had long records, which
included the alleged torture death of a San Francisco cop. When they were
discovered in southern California, they found themselves set up for L.A.
sheriff-style revenge.

The unsavory reputation of the region became a favorite
topic for sermons across America. To those who came west into this “den of
iniquity”, they found evangelists and preachers like Aimee Semple McPherson
and “Fighting Bob” Shuler waiting to save their souls... as long as the
collection plates were always full.

Los Angeles also began to earn its reputation as a landing
spot for cults and the fringe element as well. According to novelist Nathaniel
West, who used the dark side of L.A. for atmosphere in several of his books
and stories, some of the local churches included the “Church Invisible” ,
where fortunes were told; the “Tabernacle of the Third Coming”, where a
woman in male clothing preached the Crusade Against Salt; and the “Temple
Moderne”, where ‘Brain-Breathing, the Secret of the Aztecs’ was taught.
One of the most famous cult groups was founded in 1932 by Guy and Edna
Ballard, who started the Church of I Am. The “religion” was based on the
worship of the questionable deity, St. Germaine, who supposedly gave off a
violet ray of supernatural power. The Ballards accepted “love offerings”
at their temple near downtown L.A., which was topped by a glowing neon sign
which read “I AM” . It was said that they gained tens of thousands of
worshippers and they also sold products like “New Age Cold Cream”. Their
son, Donald, claimed to have the ability to become invisible and said that he
possessed a psychic power (derived from ascended spirits) that was so powerful
that he sunk several Nazi submarines. The Ballards were eventually indicted
for mail fraud although the charges were later overturned. By this time,
however, the cult had collapsed and they vanished into obscurity.

Los Angeles continued to expand in the 1930’s. Newcomers
arrived on an almost daily basis. There were “Okie’s” looking for work,
scavengers looking for a quick buck and of course, dreamseekers who came to
Hollywood looking for their big break.

Hollywood continued to serve as a beacon for would-be
starlets and dreamers, but even the brightest aspects of Tinseltown were
sometimes shadowed by death and scandal.

Lovely Thelma Todd, known as the "Hot Toddy" to friends
and fans alike

In 1935, came the murder
of celebrity Thelma Todd, which remains not only an unsolved case in
Hollywood but a part of its supernatural history as well. The murder
combined a number of intriguing and classic elements including
gangsters, gambling, a fur-clad corpse found slumped over the wheel of
a luxury car and tales of the supernatural and spirits who do not rest
in peace.

The year 1938 was a
turning point for Los Angeles crime. That same year, a private
investigator named Harry Raymond was killed while looking into reports
of police corruption. The ensuing investigation revealed proof of
bribery and vice throughout the police department and among city
officials. L.A.’s mayor Frank Shaw was implicated and he was
eventually replaced by Fletcher Bowron.

After that, raids increased on night clubs and gambling
spots and as many mobsters lost their political connections, they headed out
of town to Las Vegas.

While the heat was undeniably turned up for awhile, it did
not bring an end to crime and corruption in the city. As World War II loomed
closer, reports of fighting began to replace newspaper headlines about
sensational crime. But the war began to expose other problems in L.A., namely
the situation with gangsters and the black market. Soon, readers were
introduced to the king the Los Angeles underworld, Mickey Cohen.

He was the most recognizable of the city’s gangsters and
he always dressed and acted the part, hanging out in all the right places and
making enemies of all the right people. Connected to almost every type of vice
in the city, he was constantly in the newspapers and was trailed by both the
LAPD and the Sheriff’s department, who busted him for small infractions
which inevitably revealed larger crimes. Several attempts were made on Cohen’s
life by rival mobsters, but it would be the FBI who would get him in the end.
They eventually put him in prison for 15 years on charges of tax evasion.

Los Angeles and Hollywood changed after the war. By this
time the star system and the stranglehold the studios held on their star’s
lives began to collapse. In L.A., the end of the war saw the collapse of the
black market and a falling off of crime. However, the sex trade continued to
operate uninhibited. In the late 1940’s, Brenda Allen, one of the city’s
most notorious madams, faced a series of raids on her rented bordello. The
case turned into a full-blown scandal when it was learned that a member of the
vice squad was in Allen’s pocket and that a lot of money had changed hands
to keep the house of ill repute open. In the end, Allen was jailed, the police
chief resigned and a number of vice cops were demoted.

Several unsolved murders made headlines at the end of the
1940’s as well. In June of 1947, a rifle bullet to the head ended the life
of Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, Hollywood’s most notorious gangster
celebrity. He had been killed while visiting girlfriend Virginia Hill’s
Beverly Hills home. There was much speculation as to who had “whacked”
Siegel but it was considered to be a mob hit. Apparently, Bugsy had been
skimming money from the construction of the Flamingo Hotel, the gambling mecca
which would put Las Vegas on the map.

Even more mysterious, and much more gruesome, was the
January 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short. Her severed and bloodless body was
discovered in a vacant lot in L.A. and would go on to become one of the most
famous murders in the city’s history. Dubbed the “Black Dahlia” by the
local press, Short was the epitome of the girl who came to Hollywood to seek
stardom. Her final months were traced back through the darker side of
Hollywood and her mysterious life and death has inspired a number of fictional
accounts. Today, the case still remains unsolved.

Also that same year came the murder of former aviatrix
Jeanne French, whose battered nude body was found in a vacant lot in the Mar
Vista section of L.A. The case was quickly coined the “Red Lipstick”
murder when her torso was discovered to be inscribed with an obscene message
and signed with the words “B.D. - Tex Andy”. Police guessed that the words
may have been a mysterious reference to the Black Dahlia case which had taken
place about a month before. The search for the killer ended with no solutions
and remains unsolved.

By the 1950’s, the noir reputation which L.A. has earned
thanks to books and films was starting to come to an end and by the 1960’s
was gone altogether. Still, the darker element of society still rears its ugly
head here on occasion, as witnessed by the brutal Manson family murders in the
late 1960’s.

There is no doubt that the culture of Hollywood virtually
created the climate of Los Angeles in the early part of the century, and thus
has created the region’s large collection of ghostly tales and hauntings.

The First Hollywood Scandals

The Hollywood movie colony came into existence thanks to a
group of eastern film makers and businessmen who saw a good thing in the
nickelodeons which were springing up all over America. They were lured to the
west coast by the promise of that fabled southern California sunshine (which
was said to appear 355 days a year); low cost land; and by the opportunity to
elude the process servers of Thomas Edison (who was filing lawsuits against
anyone who copied his design of the early movie cameras). They settled into
the city of Los Angeles and began building open-air stages and makeshift
studios. It would be here where the early movie makers would begin cranking
out primitive two-reelers, which would win over the hearts and minds of the
American people.

Soon, word trickled back to Hollywood that audiences across
the country were flocking to see their favorite performers and at this point,
the actors (who prior to this were seen as little more than hired help)
suddenly gained importance as the sure way to sell tickets. The rapidly
becoming famous faces took on new names and soon earned salaries to match
their new status. Almost overnight, the once obscure and disreputable
performers suddenly found fame and fortune, becoming America’s royalty. Some
of them managed to cope with this quite well... while others did not.

Throughout the 1910’s, Hollywood re-created itself almost
daily as the new art form of movies began to emerge. Money began to roll into
studio coffers and then into the pockets of the stars. Cocaine became the drug
of choice, or “joy powder” as it was called in those days. It is reported
that the manic silent film comedies actually came about thanks to the drug and
became known as the Triangle-Keystone “cokey comedy”. In 1916, British
drug expert and occultist Aleister Crowley journeyed to Hollywood and noted
the locals as being the “cinema crowd of cocaine-crazed sexual lunatics”.
And that’s quite a statement coming from Crowley!

In addition to drugs, sex was always plentiful in Hollywood
and gossip mongers in the movie colony always had much to talk about. Was it
true that famed director D.W. Griffith had an obsession, onscreen and off,
with young girls? Could it be true that Lillian and Dorothy Gish, up and
coming young sisters, were actually lovers? Were the tales of Mack Sennett’s
“casting couch” actually true... and were some of Sennett’s Sunshine
Girls, like Gloria Swanson and Carole Lombard, really part of his hand-picked
harem? And what about Hollywood’s sex goddess, Theda Bara, who was allegedly
a French-Arab demon of depravity born beneath the Sphinx... was it true that
she was in truth Theodosia Goodman, a Jewish tailor’s daughter from Ohio?

Oh, and there was more... much more!

Within a few years of its founding, Hollywood would be the
most maligned place to ever be spoken of from church pulpits across America.
Preachers and evangelists would brand Hollywood as a place of legendary
depravity and would call for boycotts of films and protests against theaters
who would dare to show anything made in such a place.

But the general public all but ignored the outcry and they
continued to spend their hard-earned money at the movies.

The 1920’s have been referred to as Hollywood’s Golden
Age and they were, in terms of both the number of movies made and in the
amount of cash these films raked in. Unfortunately though, sometimes the
golden ones fall just like the rest of us and when they do fall... they fall
very hard.

Olive Thomas... the first Hollywood Scandal

The shocking news was first heard on the radio, on the
night of September 10, 1920 but it would later make newspaper
headlines:

The star was found dead in Paris, which makes her
death an unlikely one for the first Hollywood scandal, but there was
no denying the connections. On the morning of September 10, a Hotel
Crillon valet used his passkey to enter the hotel’s Royal Suite with
a breakfast trolley. There, on the floor, was a sable opera cape and
on top of it was the body of a nude young woman. In one of her hands
was a bottle of bichloride of mercury. The suite had been registered
in the name of Mrs. Jack Pickford, known to millions of fans as Olive
Thomas.

Olive Thomas

Olive was remembered as one of the most beautiful of the
Ziegfeld girls and had become the darling of New York magazines like VOGUE and
VANITY FAIR while only 16. She became the toast of the city and thanks to the
assistance of Conde Nast, she appeared frequently in numerous fashion
magazines. She also posed nude for the famous calendar artist, Alberto Vargas,
and illustrator Harrison Fisher called her “the most beautiful woman in the
world”. It came as no surprise to anyone when she decided to depart for
Hollywood.

She caught on in the movie colony right away and was cast
as a young girl in light comedies like BETTY TAKES A HAND, PRUDENCE ON
BROADWAY and THE FOLLIES GIRL. In 1919, Myron Selznick began his own movie
company and signed Olive to a lucrative contract. In 1920, she was huge hit in
THE FLAPPER and that same year, she married Jack Pickford, another screen idol
and the brother of star Mary Pickford. Her place among the royals of Hollywood
was not assured.

The fact that Olive committed suicide just months later
made headlines around the world and became the subject of much controversy.
She was only 20 when she died, plus she had wealth, beauty, fame, and the
adoration of not only millions of fans but that of her young husband as well.
Newspapers and magazines had referred to them as the “perfect couple”. So,
what went wrong?

The Selznick Studio was deluged with letters from around
the world and both the American Embassy and the French police promised full
investigations. Unfortunately, what the investigations revealed did not go
along well at all with the public image of Olive Thomas....

Jack Pickford was supposed to join Olive in Paris as soon
as he completed work on his film THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME to make
up for the honeymoon their busy schedules had prevented right after their
wedding. Olive had gone on ahead to do some shopping, but as the investigators
learned, it was not in the salons where her shopping was being done.

Rumors and sources soon reported that Olive had been
spotted in a number of clubs, while in the company of some of the more
notorious figures in the French underground. A story began to circulate that
Olive was desperately trying to purchase a large quantity of heroin for her
husband, Jack, who was a hopeless addict. When she failed, it was said that
she committed suicide.

When this story appeared in the press, Jack was undergoing
treatment for nervous collapse following Olive’s death and he was unable to
refute the charges. However, his sister Mary issued a statement which denied
the charges as “sickening aspersions” on her brother’s good name.

A short time later, a separate investigation, conducted by
the U.S. Army into the activities of a Captain Spaulding, led to the arrest of
a soldier who was dealing in large quantities of cocaine and heroin. On his
list of steady customers was the name of Olive Thomas.

Now, Olive was no longer known as the “Ideal American
Girl”, but as “Olive Thomas, Dope Fiend”, and watch societies began to
speak out against this new menace to American maidenhood. In the 1920’s, the
film colony lured young would-be stars from across the land and many warned
these hopefuls against the dark allure of drugs and fast living. Olive’s
death provided good newspaper copy for a year after her death, until finally,
her suicide was crowded out of the headlines by the death of another Hollywood
hopeful. This new girl was just a minor actress, but she was linked to a man
who was known as “America’s Funnyman”... Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle.

She would also go on to become one of Hollywood’s first
lingering ghosts.

The Fall of Fatty Arbuckle

This will not be the last time that the Hollywood Memorial
Park Cemetery will be mentioned in our series on “Hollywood Hauntings”,
but our first mention of it here is due to its connection to an actress named
Virginia Rappe.... and the fact that her ghost is said to haunt the place. So,
what tragic events have caused her spirit to linger behind? To answer that
question, we have to look back to the doomed history of the man who was
accused of her murder, Fatty Arbuckle.

Fatty Arbuckle... Funny Fat Man

Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle was an overweight
plumber in 1913 when he was discovered by Mack Sennett. He had come to
unclog the film producers drain but Sennett had other plans for him.
He took one look at his hefty frame and offered him a job. Arbuckle’s
large appearance, but bouncing agility, made him the perfect target
for Sennett’s brand of film comedy, which included mayhem,
pratfalls, and pies in the face.

He was soon making dozens of two-reelers as a film
buffoon and audiences loved him. He made one film after another, all
of them wildly successful, and also made a rather substantial fortune,
going from a $3-a-day job in 1913 to over $5000 by 1917, when he
signed with Paramount.

Fatty’s first brush with scandal came in March 1916 at
Mishawn Manor in Boston. The incident occurred at Brownie Kennedy’s
Roadhouse, where the lavish entertainment in Fatty’s honor included twelve
“party girls” who were paid just over $1000 for their contribution to the
evening’s fun. Unfortunately for Fatty, things came to an end just before
the party could get started. Someone spotted the girls, and Fatty, stripping
on the table in the back room of the roadhouse and called the cops. Also in
attendance that evening were movie magnates Adolph Zukor, Jesse Lasky and
Joseph Schenck. They paid $100,000 in hush money to Boston’s District
Attorney and Mayor James Curley to keep the incident quiet.

But it would be another of Fatty’s frolics that would get
him into trouble and earn him his place in Hollywood infamy.

Virginia Rappe came to
Hollywood around 1919. She was a lovely brunette model who caught the
eye of Mack Sennett and he offered her a job with his company. She
soon went to work on the studio lot, taking minor parts and
apparently, sleeping around. This fact became so well-known that rumor
had it Virginia passed along a rather sensitive infestation to so many
of Sennett’s crew that he closed down the studio and had the place
fumigated. Soon however, she earned a part in the film FANTASY and
later met Fatty Arbuckle and appeared with him in JOEY LOSES A
SWEETHEART. Soon, Virginia was noticed by William Fox, shortly after
winning an award for “Best Dressed Girl in Pictures” and he took
her under contract. There was talk of her starring in a new Fox
feature called TWILIGHT BABY and Virginia certainly seemed to be on
her way.

Starlet Virginia Rappe

Fatty had taken a shine to Virginia soon after meeting her
and insisted that his friend, Bambina Maude Delmont bring her along to a party
celebrating his new $3 million contract with Paramount. Fatty decided to hold
the bash in San Francisco, which would give him a chance to try out his new
custom-made Pierce-Arrow on the drive up the coast. On Labor Day weekend, two
car loads of party-goers headed up the coast highway and included Fatty and
his friends Lowell Sherman and Freddy Fishback, who were riding in the flashy
Pierce Arrow. Bambina Maude Delmont, Virginia Rappe and other assorted
starlets were piled in the other vehicle. They arrived in San Francisco late
on Saturday night, checking into the luxurious Hotel St. Francis. Fatty took
three adjoining suites on the 12th floor.

Shortly after arriving, Fatty made a call to his bootleg
connection and the party was on, lasting all weekend. On Labor day afternoon,
which was Monday, September 5, 1921, the party was still going strong. The
crowd had grown to about 50 people, thanks to Fatty’s “open house”
policy. Virginia and the other girls were downing gin-laced Orange Blossoms;
some of the guests had shed their tops to do the “shimmy”; guests were
vanishing into the back bedrooms for sweaty love sessions; and the empty
bottles of booze were piling up.

Around three in the afternoon, Fatty who was wearing only
pajamas and a bathrobe, grabbed Virginia and steered the intoxicated actress
to the bedroom of suite 1221. Bambina Maude Delmont later testified that the
festivities came to a halt when screams were heard in the bedroom. She also
said that weird moans were heard from behind the door. A short time later,
Fatty emerged with ripped pajamas and he told the girls to “go in and get
her dressed...she makes too much noise”. When Virginia continued to scream,
he yelled for her to shut up, or “I’ll throw you out the window”.

Bambina and another showgirl, Alice Blake, found Virginia
nearly nude and lying on the unmade made. She was moaning and told them that
she was dying. Bambina later reported that they tried to dress her, but found
that all of her clothing, including her stockings and undergarments were so
ripped and torn “that one could hardly recognize what garment s they were.”

A short time later, Virginia slipped into a coma at the
Pine Street Hospital and on September 10, she died. The cause of her death
almost went undiscovered. The San Francisco Deputy Coroner, Michael Brown,
became suspicious after what he called a “fishy” phone call from the
hospital, asking about a post-mortem. He went over personally to see what was
going on and walked right into a hasty cover-up. He was just in time to see an
orderly emerge from an elevator and head for the hospital’s incinerator with
a glass jar containing Virginia’s female organs. He seized the organs for
his own examination and discovered that Virginia’s bladder had been
ruptured, causing her to die from peritonitis. Brown reported the matter to
his boss and both agreed that a police investigation was called for.

The hospital staff was grilled as to what they knew and
they reluctantly reported the strange incidents which brought Virginia to the
hospital. Soon, the newspapers also carried the story and Fatty Arbuckle was
charged with the rape and murder of Virginia Rappe. The authorities blamed her
death on “external pressure” from Arbuckle’s weight being pressed down
on her during sex.

Soon, the newspaper stories spun out of control. It was no
longer just sex, they told a nation of stunned fans of the “happy fat man”,
but “strange and unnatural sex”. According to reports, Arbuckle became
enraged over the fact that his drunkenness had led to impotence, so he ravaged
Virginia with a Coca-Cola Bottle... or was it a champagne bottle... or could
it have been a piece of ice? Others claimed that Fatty was so well-endowed
that he had injured the girl, while others stated that the injury had come
when Fatty had landed on the slight actress during a sexual frolic.

Needless to say, a lot of guessing was being done and a lot
of insinuations were being made about Fatty Arbuckle and Virginia’s tragic
death.... and Fatty was beginning to feel the heat. In Hartford, Connecticut,
a group of angry women ripped down a screen in a theater showing an Arbuckle
comedy, while in Wyoming, a group of men opened fire in a movie house where
another Arbuckle short was being shown. A “Lynch Fatty” mood was beginning
to sweep the land and angry, and increasing boisterous, voices were calling
for Hollywood to clean up its act. Finally, Arbuckle’s films were pulled
from general release.

Held without bail, Fatty sweated it out in the San
Francisco jail while his lawyers sought to have the charges reduced from
murder to manslaughter. Film tycoon Adolph Zukor, who had millions at stake
with Arbuckle, contacted San Francisco District Attorney Matt Brady in an
effort to make the case go away. Brady was enraged and later claimed that
Zukor offered him a bribe. Other friends of Fatty called the D.A.’s office
and suggested that Arbuckle was being punished because some starlet drank too
much and died. They assumed they were helping Fatty’s case, but the result
was just the opposite... D.A. Brady grew angrier with each call on Fatty’s
behalf and by the time the case went to trial, he was livid.

The trial began in November 1921 with Arbuckle taking the
stand to deny any wrong-doing, although his attitude toward Virginia was one
of indifference. He never bothered to express any remorse or sorrow for he
death. His lawyers were even more to the point, making every effort to paint
Virginia as “loose”, suggesting that she slept around in New York, South
America, Paris and of course, in Hollywood. After much conflicting testimony,
the jury favored acquitting Fatty by 10-2 after 43 hours of deliberating. The
judge declared a mistrial.

A second trial was held and this time, the jury was hung at
10-2 for conviction. Fatty was now out on bail and was forced to sell his Los
Angeles home and fleet of luxury cars to pay his lawyer fees.

Despite the hard work of Brady, who wanted to convict
Arbuckle very badly, Fatty was finally acquitted in his third trial, which
ended on April 22, 1922. Thanks to confusing testimony by 40 drunken witnesses
and no physical evidence (like the infamous bottle), Fatty was finally a free
men. In fact, the jury issued this statement: “Acquittal is not enough for
Roscoe Arbuckle. We feel a grave injustice has been done him and there was not
the slightest proof to connect him in any way with the commission of any
crime.”

Fatty may have been free, but he was hardly forgiven.
Paramount soon canceled his $3 million contract and his unreleased films were
scrapped, costing the studio over $1 million. Fatty’s career was finished.

Arbuckle was banned from acting in Hollywood productions.
The studios just couldn’t afford to have his name connected to their
pictures. Only a few friends, like Buster Keaton, remained by his side. In
fact, it was Keaton who suggested that Arbuckle change his name to “Will B.
Good”. Actually, Arbuckle did adopt the name William Goodrich in later years
and he was able to gain employment as a gag man and as a comedy director.

Arbuckle would never act in the movies again and the public
would never allow him to forget his fall from grace either. People shouted “I’m
Coming, Virginia” when they recognized him on the street and laughter often
greeted him in restaurants and shops.

In his forced retirement, Fatty also took to drinking quite
heavily and finally, he died in New York on June 28, 1933.

Innocent or guilty? We’ll never really know for sure, but
in the state of mind called Hollywood, it didn’t really matter. Arbuckle had
managed to change the image of Hollywood from one linked to dreams to that of
one forever linked to scandal.

And now we return to Hollywood Memorial Park.... and the
ghost of Virginia Rappe. I would imagine that there is little doubt in the
mind of the reader as to why Virginia’s spirit may be a restless one. In
addition to losing her life during the horrifying incidents of that fateful
Labor Day, Virginia lost her reputation as well. The press was nearly as cruel
to her as they were to Fatty Arbuckle.

Many have asked why that was, but the answer may lie with
William Randolph Heart. It cannot be denied that the Hearst newspapers were
instrumental in turning the affair into a nationwide scandal. As it happens,
shortly before Fatty went to trial, Heart’s affair with a starlet name
Marion Davies hit the news and Marion’s film career began to suffer. Rumor
had it that Hearst gave the go-ahead to his papers to exploit every Hollywood
scandal of the time, including Fatty’s, to take the focus off himself and
Davies. Thanks to Hearst, Virginia Rappe was “raped” all over again in
newspapers across the country.

So, it’s not surprising that her ghost still lingers
behind. Visitors who come to Hollywood Memorial Park have reported hearing a
ghostly voice which weeps and cries out near Virginia’s simple grave. It is
believed by many to be her ghost, still attached to this world, and still in
anguish over her promising career, which was cut short... just like her life.

SOURCESSins of the City by Jim Heimann (1999)
Hot Toddy: True Story of Hollywood’s Most Sensational Murder by
Andy Edmonds (1989)
Severed: The Real Story of the Black Dahlia by John Gilmore
(1994)
Lamparski’s Hidden Hollywood by Richard Lamparski (1981)
Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles By Elizabeth Ward and Alain
Silver (1987)
Magic and Myth of the Movies by Parker Tyler (1947)
Hollywood Babylon by Kenneth Anger (1975)
More Haunted Houses by Joan Bingham and Dolores Riccio (1991)
Haunted Houses by Richard Winer and Nancy Osborn (1979)